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Welsh Rarebit

A cheese sauce made with American cheese, butter, catsup, ale, and seasonings served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Welsh Rarebit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate the cheese or cut it very fine.

  2. Rub the pan with garlic.

  3. Mix the seasoning with the cheese.

Make the rarebit

  1. Heat the beer until boiling, then add the cheese mixture.

  2. Stir rapidly and constantly until smooth and creamy.

  3. Beat very hard at the end and serve immediately on hot squares of toast.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Horseradish + garlictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together719 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Horseradish + clovetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

American cheese
Melts into the sauce and provides the main body and rich flavor.
Ale or beer
Thins the melted cheese into a smooth, pourable sauce while adding flavor.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother texture and richer mouthfeel.
Horseradish
Adds sharp, pungent heat that cuts through the richness of the cheese.

The step that matters

Heat the beer until boiling, then add the cheese mixture. Cheese proteins can tighten and turn grainy or stringy when overheated. Keeping the stirring steady and the heat controlled helps the cheese emulsify into a smooth, creamy sauce.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, butter, beer, horseradish, garlic, pepper, sauce):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, butter, beer, horseradish, garlic, pepper, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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